Prosecutors like RICO

Series of crimes can be tied under federal law.

Updated 10:11 pm, Monday, January 2, 2012

One Texas group reportedly fatally shot a U.S. Consulate employee in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso. Another killed 24 people in San Antonio. A third allegedly was on the take from a contractor for years.

Entering its 42nd year, the RICO Act remains one of the country's toughest and most sweeping laws. Part of it allows fraud victims to file civil suits and recover up to three times the damages they suffered.

The law has resulted in wins for the government — including the criminal convictions of members of the mob and the MS-13 gang — and occasional losses like the 1979 acquittal of members of the Hell's Angels.

The RICO Act allows federal prosecutors to stitch together crimes over 10 years, from extortion to murder to bribery, in a single case. It also allows them to tie an organization's leaders to the acts of their underlings. It imposes a minimum of 20 years in prison for those found guilty of two of the crimes included in the RICO law.

“The RICO statute allows prosecutors to focus on organizations that engage in a whole series of crimes,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joey Contreras. “It makes our job a little bit easier. Basically, the statute outlaws a group of people coming together and committing a whole series or patterns of crimes.”

The law took center stage here Dec. 8, when authorities announced the RICO Act had been used to take down 17 members of the Texas Syndicate in San Antonio, leaving 14 of them facing up to life in prison, or the federal death penalty.

But when a RICO prosecution comes down, it carries a zing and headline-grabbing allure that underlying charges might not on their own.

“It surprises me they use it now,” said San Antonio defense lawyer Alan Brown. “It's more for publicity or grandstanding, I think.”

With the advent of federal sentencing guidelines in the early 1980s, a defendant who gets a 35-year sentence for a drug crime might end up serving the same actual time as a person convicted under RICO, Brown said.

But one reason prosecutors might like RICO is the ability to throw in other crimes over the previous 10 years, he said.

“RICO's made everything admissible,” Brown said. “It takes the totality of much of your life.”

Added attorney Alex Scharff: “It's a 20-year minimum under RICO. That's what's really a hammer. The only way you can get under 20 years is by cooperating.”